How Kids Set the (Ring) Tone

James Quintana Pearce

Mar. 28, 2005 - 9:03 PM PDT
Mar. 28, 2005 - 9:03 PM PDT

Time Magazine has published an article on mobile content, which is not front-line investigative journalism but is a good healthy read, and a good way to see what the people outside of the mobile industry are beginning to see in terms of the potential of content. “What’s the bottom line? Wireless companies like Jamdat and Infospace are getting panting attention from venture capitalists convinced that cell-phone services are their newest gold mine. Wall Street has started to grill every consumer company about its wireless strategy. But this hypefest isn’t quite like the dotcom delusion. “This started with a business model,” notes Disney’s Shapiro. “We’re being prudent.”

I liked this spin on how much carriers charge content providers to allow them to sell their products on the carriers networks: “Many of them start-ups, those companies develop the games, ringtones, etc. and take a cut–as much as 80%–of the fees charged by the carrier for each download.”